In today’s scripture, we see the deity of Jesus doing a miraculous work of feeding thousands of people with about enough for maybe a family of four, if they are not starving. But don’t allow the miraculous physically cause us to miss an important lesson spiritually. Jesus displays His power and the people displayed action to His power; they ate. The food would have meant nothing if they didn’t do their part in the miracle.
Pleasing God, Making Disciples of Jesus Christ
Pleasing God, Making Disciples of Jesus Christ
Ministries
Luke 14:27 – Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
Here you will find activities and information that promotes growth in our personal relationship with Jesus Christ and our journey of discipleship.
It might seem a bit odd to have an unsaved king be an example of living out the Christian life. I have not discovered a book titled, “The Christian Life” written by King Herod. Yet, in today’s scripture, we find this wicked ruler illustrating the reality of the Christian life. He does so, not by his personal experience of walking with Christ for he lacked faith in Him. He does so by showing us what occurs in the inner life of a Christian – conflict.
It may seem like a “no brainer” question – “Why walk with God?”, but the only people who would see this question as obvious are those in the minority who do strive to walk with Him. Look around the world, even our own little worlds. Most people don’t walk with Him. In fact, most people don’t even think about God. Now before we are tempted to think the answers are so obvious as to why walk with God, let’s allow a little humility to settle into our hearts and minds.
I like going through cemeteries. My calling as a pastor takes me into them often but I go there regardless. It is an interesting and helpful place for me to visit for two reasons. First, it reminds me of the brevity of life. Unless Christ returns, I, too, will soon occupy a place in the ground in a cemetery. Walking through one awakens me to reality that I am going to die and such awareness should move me to live each day to its fullest as if it were my last. It could be.
Today’s nugget isn’t for everyone. If you are a person who has it all together, experience no spiritual struggles, are quite content on where you are spiritually, are oblivious to spiritual warfare, go through your life relatively problem-free and don’t have any concerns over sin, don’t grieve over spiritual inconsistencies in your life and are satisfied with your time in the Word, prayer, and the other things of God, then this nugget isn’t for you.
In today’s scripture, is a portion of the exodus of God’s people from their captivity in Egypt. Humanly speaking, they were between a rock and hard place. They stood on the shores of the Red Sea. Not the “reed” sea of a few inches of wade-able bog or marshland. This was the Red Sea as in deep sea, as in very deep sea, as in way over your head sea. Behind them was a huge cloud of dust and it wasn’t a sandstorm.